Site Search Navigation

Site Navigation

Site Mobile Navigation

Supported by

Landmarc’s Marc Murphy on the Question of Grades for Restaurant Cleanliness

By Sam Sifton March 18, 2010 5:22 pmMarch 18, 2010 5:22 pm

On Tuesday the New York City Board of Health voted to rate cleanliness in the city’s restaurants with publicly posted letter grades, adopting a plan proposed 14 months ago by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

City restaurateurs were divided in their response. Some, including Michael White, the impresario behind Marea, in Columbus Circle, argued that the grades would be good for customers. “It will keep everyone on their toes,” Mr. White told The Times. “Customers have high expectations. No one wants to have a B in their window.”

But others were irate. None perhaps was more irate than Marc Murphy, the generally affable chef and owner of the Landmarc restaurants, and Ditch Plains. In The Times on Wednesday, Mr. Murphy called the grades “a snapshot in time,” and argued that they would tell the customer nothing of real value.

On Thursday, Mr. Murphy went further, drafting a statement about the issue that he sent to Diner’s Journal. It follows after the jump. You may, of course, respond to his response in the comments. Grades for the cleanliness of restaurants? Yea or nay?

There has been a lot of confusion in the past couple of days about the Department of Health’s recent decision to implement letter grading. As the owner of three Manhattan restaurants and the vice president of the Manhattan chapter of the New York State Restaurant Association, I wanted to take a moment to make it clear that we are in complete agreement that the public has every right to know about the health and sanitation of New York City restaurants.

I believe health inspections are an important part of keeping restaurants accountable, and we are diligent about maintaining a clean and safe environment for our customers in each of our restaurants — it’s what keeps us in business.

What I am opposed to, however, is that the way in which this new letter grading system is being proposed will make these reports misleading to the public, not to mention that this regulation was passed as a rule through the Department of Health, rather than as a law through the City Council.

What I find most frustrating about this proposal is the arbitrary nature of its content. For example, if this is really about keeping the public safe, then why aren’t food carts, hospitals and school cafeterias included in this letter grading initiative?

And if this is, as the Department of Health says, a way of informing the public about restaurant cleanliness, then will it take the human-error factor into consideration? Health inspections are almost never performed by the same inspector twice. Where one inspector might find something worthy of a penalty, another may look at the same thing and come to a different conclusion. Shouldn’t there be a more comprehensive and objective list that is also available to the public, which guides each inspection to ensure that all restaurants are judged consistently and fairly?

My biggest concern about letter grading, in fact, is simply that I’m not at all sure the grades are going to be based solely on food safety and, ultimately, the safety of the customer. Is it fair that a restaurant with a non-food related violation such as a leaky faucet or a burned-out light bulb receive the same letter grade as a restaurant with a far more serious food-related violation? Isn’t this going to be harmful to small businesses that might suffer a lower grade due to penalties that are not related to food safety at all? With these arbitrary grades, a restaurant that receives a “C” is technically passing, but if the public is led to believe that all inspections are based solely on food safety, then how can any restaurant with anything less than “A” pass the test? And how can they stay open?

Ultimately, doesn’t it seem reasonable to say that a restaurant is either safe to eat in or not? Would you feel comfortable dining somewhere that is “sort of” clean? I guess my question is: Is this system giving the customer a false sense of security? — Marc Murphy